


Dream A Little Dream of Me

by seazu



Series: Gallavich Week 2017 [4]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, GW2017, GW2017A, Gallavich Week, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 12:53:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11059386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seazu/pseuds/seazu
Summary: Gallavich Week Day 4 - Happy EndingSoulmates AU: Find the partner of your dreams, or live an unending nightmare.





	Dream A Little Dream of Me

The smell of smoke is nothing new for Mickey. Nor the sirens blaring outside his house. But they wake him up at least. 

His eyes are heavy as he drags himself across his apartment towards the window to peer out blearily into the night, blinded by the orange of streetlamps. Except it isn’t just streetlamps. The air is thick with black smoke; the city is burning. 

By the time he pulls on sweats and starts to leave there are people banging on doors and the building’s fire alarms are yelling. He grunts and checks he has his smokes and his wallet before he heads out. There’s a grumble from across the apartment and a blue eye blinks at him, slowly. 

“Yeah, unless you wanna be a fuckin’ Kat-bab I’d get gone-” a fist hammers at his door yelling something official sounding, and Mickey pulls it open aggressively looking pissed off more than anything, “yeah alright, I’m fuckin’ comin’ keep your hair on.”

Attila scampers between them, and the cop at the door watches him go before Mickey shoves past, slamming the door shut behind him and shoving his keys into his pocket. “The fuck is goin’ on anyway.”

“Mass evacuation to the school, there are shuttles outside.”

~

Tell a bunch of people even remotely like Mickey that everyone has to stay indoors, no smoking, no drinking, and you can imagine the protest. Officials give up pretty quickly, and for the sake of the peace, the side door is propped open and a makeshift smoking area is formed in one of the old classrooms. No point in opening windows because the whole city was billowing, and ash started to rain lightly the closer it got. They turn the air-con on at least. 

People are uneasy, not just because of the fire and all of the lovely shit they’d accumulated being Kentucky Fried. Nah, the idea of sharing one massive room with most of the locals, rows and rows of beds -- well, fuck, something was bound to go wrong. Not that everyone believes in it. A lot of people go through life never meeting their soulmate, never being affected by it, thinking it’s just some weird psychological bullshit. But you can definitely tell who believes in this room. 

Mickey tries to stay up, smokes a lot, but knows he has to ration. Who knows how long they’ll be here. But he was tired before he even got here, having stayed up all day drinking and watching shitty TV and having staring contests with the giant fucking battle-cat who definitely isn’t his but bats insistently at his window from the fire escape until he lets it in. And okay he named it, and it’s nice to have some fuckin’ company sometimes but whatever. It’s also hairy as shit and only makes angry growl noises and eats all his food.

There are a few medics in the back treating anyone with smoke damage or minor burns but the rest are sent to the hospitals, he’s sure anyone involved in the emergency services are gonna be kept busy over the next few days. And if he’s gonna be stuck here that long anyway, he might as well just sleep and get it over with, because he sure as shit ain’t gonna be able to stay awake that whole time.

~

Chicago  > Personals  > Missed Connections

 

> **Dreamer in Downtown (w4m) (August 14th)**
> 
> _ 36 y/o, average body _

 

> i realise its a long shot….. we were evacuated 2 the same place. i dreamed of summer and fireflies and the smell of the surf. i can still hear the water. i think ur eyes wer blue 2. i know ur laugh, its twisted in my nightmares in2 something awful but i can remember how it shud sound. 
> 
> i have brown eyes i don’t know wat i wud smell like or wat u mite have dreamed of, but if u have nightmares now 2, call me, we shud meet.
> 
> tell me wer u were evacuated 2 so i know its u
> 
> 555-8300-702

 

  * do NOT contact me with unsolicited services or offers



~

**All that we**

**See or Seem**

**Is but a**

**Dream**

**Within a Dream**

Don’t miss the Sleeper’s Club’s biggest party ever,

this weekend at the Rabbit Hole!

 

_ Tickets at the door, $20 for entry _

~

**Sweet-Dreamers.com**

We organise parties and sessions across the country every weekend so you can find your soulmate. Sign up now, and for just the small monthly fee of $5, you  _ too  _ can heighten your chances of finding your dream partner!

~

“Tired of the pressure to find your soulmate? Ready to settle down and find love the old-fashioned way?  _ Any Dream Will Do _ is a dating service that matches you to other singles who are sick of Dreamers making everything difficult. Fill in your profile and we’ll send you on  _ real  _ dates to find your ideal match.”

~

**Local Police Crack Down on Dreaming Den**

This weekend a year long operation to expose dreaming dens -- where people pay to be sedated en masse at underground clubs or pop-up parties to dream and potentially find their soulmates -- had a massive pay-off, with over forty individuals being arrested and more to be taken into custody soon. Police Chief Barton had this to say: “The fact of the matter is, these individuals are using illegal sedatives, with no clue about safe practice or dosage. The people we’ve arrested are not only wanted for importing large quantities of illegal drugs, but are also responsible for the deaths of over 70 individuals in the last year alone, many of those teens and young adults.”

~

Sleeper Support

A support group for those who have missed their connections, and are troubled by nightmares. You are not alone.

Every Tuesday at the Y, 6pm

Coffee provided

~

Back before they thought it could affect kids, or maybe back when they thought no one could possibly be gay, Iggy Milkovich was at a sleepover with the boys in his class. He can’t remember whose birthday it was, just that he had to run away from home to get there. He can remember the look on the kid’s mom’s face when he turned up at the door in the middle of the night, though -- which was probably just the evening but it seemed very late at the time. 

He can still see the weird twist on her face that wasn’t a smile, but still can’t figure if she was awkward about letting a kid in who turned up without a parent, or if it was because he was one of the Milkovich boys and even then they had a reputation. But she let him come in. He was so excited, chest puffed out, sleeping bag he’d stolen from Jamie tied to his backpack and old PJs shoved in. Some of the kids even smiled when they saw him because not everyone hated him yet. Not every kid knew the Milkovich stories at that age. 

They played soccer out back and they feasted on pizza the kid’s mom had ordered in. No one touched the healthy snacks, instead they gorged on soda and candy and cake. He didn’t think they’d ever sleep as they gathered in the living-room with sleeping bags and pillows and watched films they definitely shouldn’t have been watching late into the night. But one by one they nodded off. The first, obviously, was drawn on. That made them all try to stay awake, but they couldn’t. 

He had the best sleep he’d ever had that night. He caught flashes of another boy. Essences. A scent, a feeling, flashes of eyes, maybe hair. Nothing that let him know exactly who it was, but it stuck to him like glue.

Every night since, he’s had nightmares. Walking around like a zombie half the time. When he was younger he couldn’t figure out why, chalked it up to his family, to his dad. Once he gets older he starts trying to sedate himself with weed and various other drugs. Rarely opiates, rarely hallucinogens. Nothing that can make his nightmares more real. Eventually it gets to the point where he can’t even remember who used to be in his class back then, he’s lost the ability to figure out who his soulmate is, and telling anyone that it’s a guy is just an impossibility. 

Iggy keeps looking, but he’s lost hope of ever having a peaceful night again.

~

Mickey tries to talk himself out of how good his dreams were the nights he slept at the school. Even after the first night, though, he eyes everyone suspiciously over their breakfast rations. His dream that night had him in what seemed like a jungle, which didn’t seem like great-dream territory at the time. It was hot and dark, but the longer he walked the more the sun poked through the trees, the brighter it got. He remembers it in snippets. He sees the sunrise, feels a rush of a cool breeze, hears a laugh that is totally ridiculous to him at the time, but makes him feel warm from his toes up. The night hits suddenly and every star in the sky feels part of something. Eyes blink and he can’t make out the colour, but he still feels a sense of something. Someone runs and he chases, but he’s laughing and that other laugh is there. 

He doesn’t think he’s ever slept so well. 

The next few nights are the same, except his image of the person gets clearer. He fuckin’ hopes it’s somehow just coincidence. He hopes, because he knows the longer he shares dreams like this with someone, the worse the nightmares will be when they stop.

~

Veronica dozed off on a train on her way to work.

Her soulmate was not hard to find. When she snapped awake there was only one other person passed out across three seats. Drooling lightly on himself, a bottle hanging from his hand. 

Her lips pressed into a tight line and her brow furrowed as she grabbed her purse and stomped across the car to him, slapping him around the head with her bag, then his chest.

Kev curled in and then rose up, one hand going to protect himself, the other pushing away too-long hair from his face and staring up at his assailant with his features pushed into a kicked-puppy expression, “hey, hey! What are you doin’??”

As soon as she saw his eyes she knew. Whatever scent she had caught in her dream was masked under whatever he’d been drinking all night, but she  _ knew.  _ And he  _ knew. _

Kev grinned a sleepy grin after a moment, and even V allowed herself, the same, but then it turned stern and she hit him again. “If you think I’m gonna spend my life with some damned Hobo that sleeps on trains, you got another thing comin’. Nuh-uh. Ain’t no soulmate worth that shit!” She hit him again and he sat up, catching her wrist gently just so she wouldn’t whack him again.

“Damn, girl, what you got in that thing, bricks?”

V quirked an eyebrow and looked at her wrist until Kev let go. Then she met his eyes again.

“I  _ got  _ a job, okay? And an apartment, I ain't homeless, I just had a night -- and hey, anyway, you were sleeping here, too! What’s your excuse?”

“I fell asleep, because I have two jobs and I’m livin’ with my mom, and her rat of a dog is keepin’ me up at all hours.”

Kev’s smile stayed soft, his features were gooey no matter how stern she looked, and it almost pissed her off. Almost. “You wanna stay at mine tonight?”

~

It was not a coincidence. 

The nightmares start the night he leaves the school to go back home. He feared as much, it’s why he put off sleeping for as long as possible by cleaning his flat, and rubbing down the smoke damage from his windows by the fire escape. By getting a shower and food and doing washing and all sorts of things he normally puts off for days at least. But as soon as he lets himself drift off, everything is dark and twisted. Far gone are the dreams he’d had those sweet few days. The running shadow is chasing him now. The Jungle is dark and vines twist to grab and swipe at him. There’s a sick crunching under his feet that sounds like snapping bones but he doesn’t dare look down. And that laugh, that laugh echoes like something wicked. There is no light, the sunset turns to blood and then darkness, and the air smell rotten. He feels scared, to his core. 

He wakes up shaking and sweating, and takes himself to the window for a smoke just to settle himself, but the images remain. He realizes there and then that he ain’t cut for this. He has to find his soulmate.

~

**Univerity of Chicago Group**

_ 31st Aug _

> **Stacey Wright** **said:**
> 
> I fell asleep in Mr Matthew’s class last week (shh!) not even for that long, but I had the most amazing dream of you. And nightmares since. I never believed in it before but… if you’re reading this and you take his class and you fell asleep and are having the same dreams… please hmu x

~

He doesn’t really know how to start, there Isn’t exactly a census of people who were at the school. Or maybe there is, everyone was checked up on, as far as he can remember. He can’t even think of who would have that list, but the easiest way he can think of for a start is to put up ads. One on the buildings bulletin board, at least. Then maybe one in the local paper, and on Craigslist. Can’t hurt. Unless he gets a tonne of idiot callers. Which probably will happen.

He resolves to get a burner phone just for this shit. At least it would keep everything separate and he’d know the only reason anyone would have the number was for this. His Soulmate Phone.

He gets a start on it first thing the next morning, doesn’t dare sleep again but just goes straight to writing down an ad, but doesn’t do anything with it until he gets to the store and picks up a phone. Taking note of the number before he pops down to the office for the local paper and buys an ad, leaving in a condensed version of what he wrote that morning. The original has his number added and pasted on the building’s board, and last minute he decides to put some on the board of the local church and the Y. Finally he spends the rest of his time finding websites like Craigslist and Facebook and fucking YikYak just to put up details and hope for a legitimate hit. 

And he does get some people writing back and some calls. But it’s all bullshit. All pranks and whores and assholes taking the piss out of him. He ends up more and more angry as the day goes on. When he finds a poster for a support group for missed connections he gets distracted by Attila making his grand return, slipping through the window and sitting across the room, grumbling and he’s sure it should be a purring noise but it really just sounds like a demonic sort of growl.

The cat is fucking huge, that can’t be understated. He comes up to Mickey’s knee easily, and he isn’t sure how it doesn’t just stomp everywhere, but miraculously he’s almost silent, apart from the occasional click of a claw or two that doesn’t seem to be able to retract. Mickey also happens to know that he’s missing a few claws, since he’s been scratched enough times to notice there are a few scars missing. Speaking of, the thing is bloody littered in them, even missing an eye and a few chunks from his ears. He clearly has seem quite a lot of action, and that’s why Mickey thought he deserved a warlord’s name. 

One of Attila’s teeth hangs out over his lip and is starkly white against his matted black fur, and he opens his mouth wide and stretches. He looks matted in ash and Mickey sighs a bit, getting up to give him a towel to lie on so everything doesn’t get sooty. He  _ did  _ fuckin’ just clean and that is a huge effort. 

He tires himself out easily after a night of almost no sleep, and once he eats all he wants to do is lie down and watch shitty tv and not concentrate on anything. When he drags himself to bed his dreams are worse again. He wakes up crying for the first time since he was little, shaking like a fucking leaf and just sobbing. Emptiness takes him over and in the dark of the night he can’t even be sure he’s not still asleep. Paranoia grips him and he swears there are creatures concealed by shadow ready to take him and rip him apart. 

~

_ Been having nightmares since evac _

_ Call me if you have too _

_ M _

_ TEL: 07755537655 _

~

He hesitates to write (m4m) on his online missed connections ads, but he knows it must be. It was something he buried as a kid, ignored as a pre-teen and masked until the last few years. And even though he’s dealing with it better now that he’s moved out on his own to a different part of the city, it’s not like he’s had a steady stream of partners. He’s always existed relatively alone. Often isolated from his own family for his differences, much as he tried to blend in. Always smaller, weaker, more emotional, and he could only ever make up for it with spontaneous acts of violence or a sharp tongue. Without having to hide behind that guise now, he finds himself far more relaxed and living his most stress-free life. So having a fucking boyfriend isn’t even all that necessary. Maybe a soulmate will be different though.

It's hard to daydream about it though. The edges of his subconscious is where the darkness lurks. If he spends too much time thinking about anything, the nightmares start to leak in. They get more and more vivid every night. He can’t remember the last time he managed to sleep at all, his nightmares are so intense that he wakes up twice as tired as when he tried to sleep in the first place. He spends his days like a zombie, barely able to get off the couch, but living some Freddie Kreuger shit where he’s absolutely terrified to close his eyes.

It gets ridiculous the stupid mistakes he makes, like trying to put milk in the cupboard instead of the fridge, or walking into a room and not knowing why he's there. He often finds himself just staring into space and losing all sense of time. 

After a few days of that it gets hard to do anything, he considers getting sleeping pills but the idea of being trapped in an unending nightmare is Hell on Earth. The fact of the matter is a few minutes asleep terrorizes him, a few hours might kill him. 

He starts to look pale and sunken, he starts to lose the will. It’s like there’s a countdown timer on his life that he can’t see but he knows it’ll be hitting zero soon. Sooner with every night he accidentally drifts off. He had no idea things would get this bad, he understands the people who were too afraid to sleep in the school now, maybe they knew someone who had gone through this already. He only ever knew people who slept together one night, that never got a clear picture and had bad dreams after, they never spoke about this intensity. Some even said that it faded over time. Was it just that they had apparently slept a few nights together? That he had started to get a clearer picture of him?

People always focused on the finer points. The After. The bit where the longer you slept together, the better your dreams got, that those who were very close for months and months could share dreams. That after years they started to share feelings and emotions and eventually thoughts. That sounded… fine. Maybe a little intrusive, but better than this. 

~

After two weeks of barely any sleep and no success on the calls, Mickey decides it’s Soulmate or his life. He feels dead already, anyway. 

~

“Hey, my name is uh, Mickey. Is this like AA, do I gotta do the  _ and I’m an alcoholic, it’s been two minutes since my last drink  _ thing?” There’s a bit of a laugh and some smiles and Mickey settles a little. He scratches the back of his wrist and feels a little light-headed from exhaustion. “I slept at the school during the evacuation a few weeks back. I had the dreams a few nights in a row before I was allowed to go home. And I’ve had nightmares since. I don’t even think that’s the right fuckin’ word because this ain’t no cackling witch or falling feeling, this is…” he shakes his head. “I tried a bunch of places, put up ads all over and got a tonne of texts and calls and shit but it wasn’t the person. I… need to find them. I can’t fuckin’ stick it anymore. I ain’t slept in weeks and any time I fall asleep I wake up after a minute or two and it feels like I’ve been trapped in it for hours. And every time I fall asleep it seems to last longer and longer.” He shakes his head again, and looks away. It feels good to say it out loud but it doesn’t change anything, not really. 

He feels shut down, closed off, even the ache is starting to numb around the edges. He’s a void. The circle moves on and someone else talks. The stories are similar, most of the people look almost as dead as he feels, no one is happy. What fuckin torture is this world. 

As he’s leaving the group a smaller guy comes up to him, and presses a flier into his hand.

“It’s hard, but it doesn’t have to be lonely, you can call this number any time, if you need someone. And this group is always open to you, Mickey.”

He nods, but his eyes feel heavy and his tongue doesn’t want to move. He takes the flier to tuck into his pocket but he doesn’t make any attempt to do anything other than walk. He feels like he has blinders on, like everything is dark around the edges, fuck the whole fucking world seems darker. He steps into the road to cross, and then there’s a screaming noise, and a lot of pain, and everything gets a whole lot darker. 

In a sudden moment of absolute agony all he can think of is,  _ fuck, what if death is just one long nightmare, too? _

~

“You’re gonna be okay, just stay with me…”

The first thing he gets is a scent. He can’t open his eyes straight away but that scent consumes him, it’s so familiar and yet so new. He gets a sense he’s moving, patches of light and dark moving over him and shifting his vision. He slowly blinks his eyes open and squints as blurring shapes come into focus. 

“Hey there, see, you’re doing great, even got your eyes open.”

Orange and blue become a guy in an EMT uniform, but the thing of it is him coming slowly into focus reminds him of something… something, something…

“Wanna know why the idiot crossed the road?” he croaks.

The EMT laughs, a stupid dorky laugh that’s half surprised from him but still soft and warm around the edges. Mickey’s eyes snap open wider and his hand tries to reach for the guy. 

“Y-you it’s--”

“Hey hey, try and not talk too much, you’re gonna need your energy. You were in an accident, remember? A car swerved into you, you’ve sustained a lot of pretty serious looking injuries.”

“You… from the dreams, y-you…” he swallows hard and cringes at the feeling. 

The guys eyes go round and Mickey is at least satisfied that he seems to understand. “Y-you’re my soulmate? It was  _ you _ ? Shit, you better get fucking better because I  _ need _ to sleep.” 

“What’s your…”

“Ian.”

“Mickey.”

Mickey smiles, or tries to smile. Ian’s hand pushes back some hair that seems to be sticking to his head, he doesn’t know if it’s sweat or blood. Doesn’t care either, because his touch is soft and his affection seems genuine, and having someone be concerned for him, it’s more than he’s ever had. His eyes close and he slips away again, peacefully.

~

He wakes a few times, but only briefly. He has a lot of sleep to catch up on, and after getting run down his body demanded it in order to heal. He isn’t sure if he’s awake or dreaming when he sees Ian sitting by his bed, but he doesn’t ever manage to stay awake long anyway.

~

“I’ve been uh… I’ve been sleeping here, I hope you don’t mind.” He laughs a little and scratches at the back of his neck.

“If that’s why I ain’t been havin’ nightmares this whole time, then I don’t fuckin’ mind at all.” Mickey says, sitting up in bed comfortably for the first time in… well, he can’t say, it’s been hard to track time when he’s been asleep for so much of it. 

“I was trying to find you,” Ian says after a pause, a little quietly. “It was… hard, I’m sorry if you got any of that.”

“Any of…?”

He sniffs and looks away, “I felt pretty bad, I didn’t know there was a sort of… well my brother says if you sleep near each other a few times and then part, you get this strong sort of share of negative emotions and things.”

Mickey frowns a little, “you must have been going through some serious shit.”

“Yeah well, I’m uh… I’m Bi-Polar. And I’m medicated, you know, I’m managing with it, it doesn’t really get me that bad anymore. But I was worried that since it’s… part of me and it’s just muffled under drugs and routine and things… I wasn’t sure if you might be getting it anyway.”

“I mean… I don’t know. It was… it was fucking bad, man. Like, shit. How’d you ever do that?”

“It might not have been exactly like you felt it, because it was, you know, mixed up with the bond thing and the nightmares and all that I’m just… I’m really sorry I put you through that.”

“I was trying to find you, too. Put up ads everywhere.”

“Shit, I never thought of that, I was just trying to track down the people who slept there, it was fucking hard to fit around shifts.”

“I bet.”

“Didn’t think I’d find you this way.”

“Mhm.”

“You getting tired again?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll let you sleep.”

~

“I’m fine, I’m fine, I can do it myself, man.”

“I  _ know  _ you can do it, but I’m holding all the fucking groceries--”

“Because I’m in fuckin’ crutches, man, you want me to carry something?!”

“No, I just, I can open the door for you, just give me the keys.”

“I  _ got  _ it.”

_ Clink. _

“Did you just drop the keys?”

“I dropped the keys.”

“Yeah, let me…”

Ian fiddles with the lock briefly while navigating his grocery bags rather masterfully and he pushes the door open, letting them both in before he takes a moment to take the apartment in. 

“It’s nicer than I expected.”

“Sorry, do I not give you the right vibes? Were you expecting a crack-den?”

“Sort of, yeah.”

“Fuck you.”

“Maybe later.”

He walks to the kitchen to start putting stuff away while Mickey hobbles to the sitting-room and lowers himself to the couch. 

“Uhh… Mick?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have a baby bear?”

“It’s a cat.”

“Do you have a cat.”

“No.”

“So why is there one staring at me.”

“He thinks he lives here.”

“Uhm….”

“Just walk past him, he won’t do nothin'.”

He doesn’t hear footsteps, he just hears Attila’s rumble-growl-purr and after a while Ian, “n’aaaaaaw! He’s so cute!!” 


End file.
